Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General About the "evil" path.

We also have a lovely narrator to help give our actions context and motivations. Nothing wrong with a little soul-searching for our character with the narrator serving as the Kreia on our shoulder.

Personally I felt our intentions regarding the decisions were expressed properly with Minthara due to this piece of dialogue:



The first part of the dialogue is the moment we meet her and end up telepathically linked during which the Narrator mentions how determined and focused Minthara is on locating the grove while probing us, so here we get a choice in how to approach the situation. The 1st and 3rd option are basically acting as deception choices in order to save the grove, while the 2nd one is us somewhat joining her cause. And I'm pretty sure she immediately gains the location of the grove by choosing the 2nd option, while the other two choices require an intelligence check to prevent her from discovering the location, after which she orders us to clear our mind because she is unable to penetrate it.

Though the reason why she doesn't look for deception is because the Narrator during these moments mentions that she is entirely focused and determined on locating the grove, but also because if we ask her how she knows we are a True Soul, she just accepts that we are as she feels the connection within us and does not question the Absolute.

The second part is the moment we betray Zevlor, in which the actual reasoning for the character joining her is stated out loud.


Ah Kreia... such a phenomenally written character. Decades later and her lessons about morality, actions and consequences are so memorable. My favorite definitely being the lesson about the homeless guy just as you dock in Nar Shaddaa. A timeless classic KOTOR 2 is ^^

If Zevlor dies in a druid conflict then Asharak takes his place and the dialogue is different when you betray the tieflings I think.

I must admit I was quite excited to see what would happen if Zevlor wasn't there, but it didn't change by much in terms of dialogue choices as it just added a [DROW] option. But still was pretty cool given how emotionless of a response it is, just makes me wonder why we can't say this to Zevlor.



Though I'm quite glad you mentioned this as I never experienced the raid with Asharak. I must say he is just as good as Zevlor in this scene, love his passion and the sudden realization when the gates are opened ^^

Huh, I don’t really recall that dialogue with Minthara, but perhaps that’s because I’ve only done one playthrough where I didn’t save Sazza, which changes that scene. Picking one of those options you show would be more satisfying to me, and I wish there were something like it when Sazza introduces you. Though as Sazza will give directions to the grove that element is irrelevant.

I’m not particularly concerned about being able to justify myself to Zevlor, as it seems unreasonably self-centred to expect him to care given he and those he protects would die whatever my rationale. But needing healing is not the main motivation I had in mind for my character, rather it was finding out about the cult and destroying it from within. That was something I didn’t get the opportunity to say to anyone in my playthrough, though I don’t rule out there being something in a dialogue branch I didn’t discover!

Ah yes, if you save Sazza then the little blabbermouth will spill the location and basically force you into the raid path and you lose out on so much dialogue because of it. Part of a reason why I leave her in the cage at the grove ^^

As for the motive, I agree that it also isn't what I envision for the character as a primary reason to consider joining Minthara. To me it's just a weak foundation since the party is already looking for the cure, but if we join Minthara then our goal still remains the same but we have to murder 60 NPCs in order to continue the search for our goal. So hopefully they'll improve the reasoning of the character to make it more interesting and meaningful.

And I sure hope Moonrise Towers will present us some interesting and questionable choices regarding these decisions as well, to make it all the more interesting. I'm pretty sure the Drow General is supposed to be there, so I'm really curious and excited for his encounter when the game releases.

In this decision, the game gives you short & long term reward for being GOOD.

Taking the GOOD path:
- Druid gifts
- Tiefling gifts
- Gobelins loot.
+ MOST IMPORTANT implicit rewards that you will have more quests with Tieflings in Baldur´s gate.

Taking the EVIL path:
- Druid & Tiefling loots (but you need to find difficult riddle to get the druid treasures
- No gobelin loots, unless you get betrayed which arguably is not the outcome you expect from siding with someone...
- Some characters leave you permanently
+ MOST IMPORTANT implicitly losing on contents from tieflings on long term


HOW TO SOLVE IT WITHOUT MUCH WORK?

In my view simply adding a few dialogues to the Drow Minthara hinting that she will help you gain you get special contact with some Dark elves in the underdark.
So that player would feel: Oh I am not missing on the Tieflings, I am choosing between gaining Tieflings or Drow exclusive contents in the next steps of the game.

HOW TO SOLVE IT EVEN BETTER BUT WITH MORE WORK?
Make Minthara a playable sidekick for the adventurer. It would be extremely satisfying!

These are some big ones for me. For example, lose Minthara by siding with grove, lose Wyll if you side with the Minthara. I can accept that sort of balanced tradeoff. But it's more complicated than that, a much less even trade. For one Minthara is not a companion. Maybe she is down the line, maybe not, but she isn't right now, so 'losing' her right after we meet her doesn't have the same impact as Wyll, someone you likely meet much earlier and have been adventuring for quite a while by the time you make your choice. On the other end, she goes away right after the party, so the amount of Wyll content vs Minthara content is just not comparable. And furthermore, it isn't just a Wyll vs Minthara situation. It also brings you into conflict with other companions. It looks like a total of at least five of the eight companions will object to siding with Minthara. Everyone knows that Gale has to be talked out of leaving, and of course the choice seems to break your romance path with any of the companions who object to siding with the goblins. Even if it's possible to persuade to stay like Gale, you are looking at a very unbalanced set of scales there. I for one am not crazy about the possibility of losing access to half my companions+romance options because I sided with the goblins and Minthara.

And the promise of future npc interaction is in a similar vein. We know from the datamined voice files that the 'stories' of a great many of the Tieflings continue in the next section, but there's nothing found for *any* of the goblin camp npcs bar past the section we have playable so far. So even if you do develop a fondness for Abdirak- the priest of Loviatar, or Volo's admirer Gribbo, or you want to see Sazza again...there's no indication whatsoever you'll see them again. There's the Zhents, but that's a quest detached from the main quest so IDK if I'd count that. Nere. I think he's the only one, and currently if you want him as an ally *against* the absolute you have to Not great IMO.

In a similar vein, there are no evil camp followers yet. I'm sure a lot of folks would like to take some of the above with them, or have other favorites among the evil npcs, but none of them are available (so far). In-fact, the ones you can get seem to universally conflict with the 'good' camp followers. Volo (as mentioned previously) will promise to tell everyone of your evil deeds (idr if he leaves afterwards, he might) Your dog will shame you at the party saying that he 'hopes the goblins aren't your friends' (don't recall the owlbear's reaction, I imagine it's not great either, considering circumstances) Halsin of course will either be dead or try to kill you after the party, & iirc the gnome will leave after the party if you sided with the goblins. So again, not great.

I love Sazza, but rescuing her is kinda the 'big' sidequest for the goblin camp and completing it jumpstarts the grove siege, likely causing you to lose out on a lot of the rest of the content in the goblin camp.

In my playthrough he was just there in his normal place the next night saying “Hello, my friend” as though nothing had happened. Though that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense, so perhaps will change.


Really?! I’d freed Halsin and the journal said he’d not be happy with me but I never saw him again. But I never went back to the grove or goblin camp and as I’d already done everything else before the raid including the Underdark and Grymforge, I didn’t spend much longer in that game. Is there somewhere specific you need to go to encounter Halsin again?



It’s so interesting that we have all these different experiences of the game. In almost every playthrough except my last, I saved Sazza, followed her into the sanctum, eventually caught up with her by Minthara and then killed Minthara before she or the nearby goblins could alert the rest of the camp. I could rescue Halsin and do whatever else I wanted in the goblin camp before or after speaking with Sazza and Minthara, though I don’t think I ever tried to kill Ragzlin before speaking to Minthara so that may have changed things.

Once I was too slow and one of Minthara’s goblins banged the drum near her and turned all the goblins hostile but otherwise saving Sazza didn’t prevent me from accessing any goblin camp content, except clearly some dialogue with Minthara which is a pity. In a previous patch, Sazza even helped me fight Minthara if she was otherwise going to get chucked to the spiders, which I particularly enjoyed, but that seems to have changed in patch 8.

Unfortunately yes. The issue is that even Minthara's very own introductory quest through Sazza takes away small yet meaningful dialogue to help us connect with the character and establish a proper backstory for the bad path.

Personally at the very minimum I'd expect from the bad path;

• To have a more meaningful and lengthier introduction to Minthara in order to establish her as a long lasting character and become invested in her.
• To captivate us with better and actual reasons on why the character would consider joining her, instead of just her outright accepting us and sending us on a raid.
• Once the raid starts, to be able to do the same amount of interaction with the gobo raiding party as we can do with the entire Grove. Minthara's raiding party is nowhere physically on the map so there is no interacting with them, not even to make the invasion more immersive or interesting through minor decisions and actions.
• To not have the Goblin Camp go hostile, but instead to become accepting to us and open up lore and story to provide some exclusive insight and backstory for the bad path from the actual NPCs.
• To have some minor side-quests to do after the raid in the Goblin Camp. For example feeding Sazza to the spiders, torturing Liam, throwing rocks at Halsin as a bear or kicking the corpse in front of the gobo kids were good attempts at immersing us into the bad path.
• To be as engaging and interesting as the Tiefling side, with potential future interactions from all of the NPCs in the camp or at least some of them.
• To have an equal amount of content as the Druid's Grove so it doesn't feel like a rockslide when comparing the gains and losses between the two sides.
• To gain Minthara as a romanceable full companion as compensation for Wyll leaving, with the possibility to save her from the Absolute and forever live with her in Menzoberanzan at the end of the story if she is chosen as the love interest. Or to forever condemn her into our own service.

To me this would be a start to make the bad path more captivating and interesting to experience, with meaningful content and outcomes, happening simultaneously with the Tiefling side during ACT I and then extending into ACT II. Because as many have pointed out, there's simply no competition when comparing the two sides in terms of content.

Reminds me part of one text from Pink:
LA told me, "You'll be a pop star,
All you have to change is everything you are."

Doesnt seem like a fix. :-/

Maybe that is part of the plan ... we just didnt get there yet.

A lot of good points and ideas here. Although, I feel like we don't know much about Halsin either except that he could help.
The Goblin Camp not becoming hostile after siding Minthara is a big one. In addition to some potential extra dialogues after the raid, we would still have access to a shop keeper on the surface.


I would never fight against love (?) xD Yes to that !

Don't know if I agree with some of those. There's actually a lot of content at the Goblin Camp (from the Gate to the Shattered Sanctum) with a lot of interesting and fun npcs. What's needed is the Goblin Camp to still be made available (non-hostile) to those who sided with Minthara. Although, she does say that the Absolute wants us dead. Some way to introduce that logically would be nice.

Also, a reminder that, after the party, the Tieflings leave the grove and there isn't much left to do there either.


+1

Naturally the camp has plenty of content, but in terms of story it is nowhere near the same scale nor meaning since their content comes to a sudden stop soon after.

The content simply fails to invest me and attach me to any of the characters and their stories because beside Minthara and Abdirak, there is no future for the rest since they are treated as evil disposable NPCs by the story. No matter whether you side with Minthara or Halsin, the fate of the gobos is always set to be hostile and no further interactions are possible. Even the Zhentarim merchant in there for some odd reason decides to fight you. Abdirak is the only neutral NPC there who just packs up and leaves, so I'm happy that he at least has a future.

Not to mention that from the very start of the game the story treats them as disposable evil vermin:

• You are forced to take the Tiefling side in the first battle for the Grove. You don't have a choice to even ignore it.
• The gobos underneath the Grove outright attack you even if you are escorting Sazza.
• Sazza herself betrays you after saving her.
• Minthara betrays you after the battle.
• The entire camp betrays you after the battle.

And to make matters worse, Minthara herself as well sees them as nothing but disposable vermin which she enjoys decimating in order to put in line. Basically the story is from the start to finish trying so hard to illustrate Minthara's side as evil disposable NPCs and at the end literally gives you the green light; "Hey you, I know you tried to join them but... they're hostile now. See! Marked with red. XP! Yay!".

Compare that to the Tieflings who get so many interactions to properly invest the player into their story in order to establish an engaging attachment to the characters and their arcs, which is then gradually grown and eventually moved into ACT II where it will continue to grow. That's over 50 NPCs worth of content.

Meanwhile all I get from Minthara's side are two potential interactions with Minthara in the future and her Drow Orc acquaintance, while losing so much (comparison is on page 4 for that).

If I wish to play Minthara's side, I'd like to feel the same amount of investment and attachment with her side as I do with the Tiefling side. There needs to be a balance for me to enjoy it. If I am invested and attached to 50 NPCs on this side, then I have to gain a considerable amount of NPCs on the other side to invest and attach myself and see their stories carry on into the future. Unfortunately though, it doesn't go anywhere with the gobos except a sudden end of a blade.

Hmm. I agree to an extent. I definitely would prefer that the goblin camp didn’t become hostile, and that there was a more obviously viable infiltration path where we became trusted by the cult and which promises to lead somewhere interesting.

But I do also prefer that path to have a very different and lonelier feel than the one that sides with the grove. The people you’re getting involved with tend not to be ones to whom attachment comes naturally, and I’d like working with them to (continue to) feel more like walking a knife-edge as they could turn on you at any time.

At least as long as that makes some kind of in-world sense rather than just feeling that they’re attacking you because Larian simply haven’t got round to writing the alternative, though of course that’s understandable in EA.

Is the corollary of "No good deed goes unpunished." (i.e., "No bad deed goes unrewarded.") at all true?

Hmm, rather “crime doesn’t pay”, though I’m sure it sometimes does. And, anyway, “virtue is its own reward” .

EDIT: The closest idiom I can currently think of to your original corollary is “the devil gets all the best tunes” but that’s not really the same.

It's not about good deeds or bad. It's about one path being less fleshed out and having less content than the other. If it's presented as an option it should be more or less equally fleshed out or just not be there.

Yes, I know. My post was an aside. For which I should probably apologise for posting off topic. Sorry!

Great ideas

Lots of interesting characters in the Goblin camp.

Perhaps the lack of a solid evil path is a lack of resources for the needed voice acting and cut scenes.

On the contrary: discussions over philosophy concerning morality help to establish a firmer context. With that context, we gain a better idea of just what constitutes interesting/believable "good" and "bad"/evil paths. Hell, we may even learn why the developer chose to flesh out specific options over others.